New meme: Spill proves Obama isn't manly enough

So here's where we're headed next. The subtext of some of the criticism in the wake of last night's speech is subtle, but unmistakable: Obama's inability to halt the spill calls his manhood into question.

The setting of the Oval Office creates an expectation of decisive executive action. It recalls memories of President Dwight Eisenhower dispatching federal troops to Little Rock or President John F. Kennedy announcing the naval "quarantine" of Cuba. This speech will not be confused with those precedents. Obama urges others to take action, kibitzes with corporate executives, shifts some government personnel and signals the start of a review process. A crisis is met with a study. The action verbs in this speech have somehow gone missing. It is all rather limp and weak.

Gerson, of course, worked for a president who swaggered decisively off the stage of history with some of the limpest approval ratings ever.

And here's Maureen Dowd, cattily mocking Obama because he recently acknowledged to Gulf residents that there are limits to his own power, which Dowd characterizes as so much whining:

"Even though I'm president of the United States, my power is not limitless," Obama, who has forced himself to ingest a load of gulf crab cakes, shrimp and crawfish tails, whinged to Grand Isle, La., residents on Friday. "So I can't dive down there and plug the hole. I can't suck it up with a straw."

See, Obama had to force himself to eat a plate of food in order to prove his heartiness. Get it?

Dowd's obsession with Obama's appetite (recall that she mocked him during the campaign for making a meal out of Nicorette) is unsettling enough on its own. But her characterization of this incident is instructive in another way.

If you watch video of the episode, you can clearly see that Obama is acknowledging the limits of his own power in a regretful way. He's apologizing to Gulf residents by candidly admitting that the situation is out of his control. But Dowd is subtly distorting the episode in order to suggest he's whining about how unfair it all is -- in order to suggest that he's a wuss. Sound familar?

The notion that the public sees macho swagger as "strength" and instinctively prefers it to a more cerebral, restrained and calm approach to leadership is pure fiction. Bush's swagger did nothing to rescue him from historic unpopularity. The McCain campaign not-so-subtly cast the 2008 race as a macho war hero versus a puffed up dandy (see Celebrity, TV ad), and we all know how that turned out.

Polls have shown again and again that majorities regards Obama as a "strong" leader, and I'm willing to bet Gerson and Dowd a pair of Plum Line lava lamps that the next three major national polls will all show the same.

Those polls will say this despite the fact that majorities also disappprove of his handling of the spill. That's because the public -- for very good reason -- is taking issue with the substance of his response, not the theatrics of it.

These columnists seem to desire attention more than anything else. The impossible demands that Obama be something he's not, and shouldn't be, and couldn't be, are pathological. This is what the hysteric does: makes impossible demands that sound reasonable and substantive but are just a cry for attention.

This is the new definition of the op-ed writer (by and large). Notice me! There is spectacle here!

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is emerging as a fierce critic of the Obama administration's proposed escrow fund to handle damage claims against BP.

The Minnesota Independent reports that Bachmann spoke Tuesday to the Heritage Foundation, and badmouthed the idea. "The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund," said Bachmann. "And now it appears like we'll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government."

Also, David Weigel reports that Bachmann also said: "They have to lift the liability cap. But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there -- 'We're not going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced.' And they shouldn't be. They shouldn't have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest -- they've got to be legitimate claims."

And if you think what Dowd and the other pundits like Gerson do is anything new, here's Edgar Allan Poe from 1842:

"We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation- to make a point- than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print which merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well founded this opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass of the people regard as profound only him who suggests pungent contradictions of the general idea. In ratiocination, not less than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most immediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is of the lowest order of merit."

"The subtext of some of the criticism in the wake of last night's speech is subtle, but unmistakable:"

Except, apparently, by you (and Bernie, who seemingly prompted you to pen this post).

"Obama's inability to halt the spill calls his manhood into question."

Uh, no, it calls into question his leadership and executive skills. It is useful propaganda, I suppose, to pretend that critics are questioning his "manhood" rather than his capabilities. But it is propaganda nonetheless.

The Speech touched most of the points that I had outlined yesterday, so I have no quarrel with what President Obama said.

Of course, the spill still has to be stopped, and I wonder when that will actually be done.

What If the BP relief lines, that they are now drilling, also fail? I am sure they are rushing to get those completed also, so they might end up having their own screw ups.
So far, everything BP has attempted, has failed, despite having talked them up as having high potential for success. Therefore; we should not put too much faith in their promise that the relief holes, now being drilled, will actually solve the problem.

It all started with the leak, and it will only end when the leak is actually stopped.

The same pundits who loved Bush's swagger and contend that it is the mark of a "real" president may be out of the seat of power now but they still make their opinions known: Gerson and Thiessen, two of the most egregious swagger-meisters work at the Post, most of the rest work for Fox and several work for both. The love of the blustering bully will never die as long as Ailes, Murdoch and their slavish crowd of mocking chickenhawks swarm for a paycheck.

Obama comparisons are relative. Yes progressives have been hitting him for not being progressive enough, tough enough with insurers, wall st and now the big oil companies. But as much as progressives complain, if you ask them how he is doing compared to Bush or what would be going on if McCain and the Wasilla Hillbilly were in office, with the exception of national security where Obama has continued some of the most odious practices of the bushies, I think that everyone to the left of David Broder prefers Obama to the Republican alternative. Villagers just bash Obama because they see him as an easy target, since he has no control of the actual leak stoppage and clean up effort being lead by BP. There is little ideological content in Dowd or Gerson's diatribes, just whining about Obama's demeanor, etc. If they prefer Bush's ignorant swaggering, they should say so and get the ridicule they so richly deserve.

@Mike: Answer No. There is no left equivalent of Faux News, nor should there be. It is not a news organization's job to promote or denegrate a president or party, without regard to the actual facts on the ground. Fox fails this test every minute it broadcasts. I would ridicule a "news" organization that relentlessly pushed Dem messages without regard for the facts.

Last month, Mark Hafle, BP's senior drilling engineer for the oil well that's now spewing millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, testified in Kenner that he and his team believed they had worked in concert with a contractor to come up with the safest possible design for encasing the well with cement and steel tubing so that "all the concerns had been addressed."

But now, e-mail messages released by congressional investigators paint a different picture of Hafle's confidence in the troubled well.

They show Hafle expressed concerns in the week before the April 20 disaster on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, calling the Macondo well 5,000 feet below that rig "a crazy well."

What Ms. Dowd, or other pundits, have to say about The President's Demeanor is diverting our focus from the real problem, The ongoing torrent of leaking oil which is destroying the Gulf Coast, and the livelihoods of millions of people. Also, it is well on the way to collapsing the Marine Life food chain, in the entire Gulf Waters region.

Ms. Dowd's comments are just a flea bite on an Elephant's Arse.

The people of the Gulf Coast are in dire straits, and I am not convinced that BP will actually stop the damn leak.

If they do not, what then?

Can we talk about the real problem, instead of some pundit's brain farts, please.

Liam, I've been reading a lot of scientific commentary over at the oildrum. The only way to plug the leak is to kill the well via relief wells in the process of being drilled right now. The casing below the BOP and LMRP is not able to withstand the pressure of a top kill. The fear is killing it from above will cause it to force the oil out from the sea bed in even larger quantities with no chance for killing the well at all, short of explosive devices, which are not even remotely being considered to my knowledge.

They are planning on replacing the top hat with a different and better version in the next few weeks which will be able to capture more of the escaping oil. They are also bringing in more containment and processing boats to deal with the huge amount of oil and gas spewing from the well. None of these efforts are guaranteed or without enormous risk, hence the amount of time to coordinate it all within a company with virtually no worst case scenario plan and oversight by a government not educated in DW drilling takes time. It literally verges on being an unsolvable problem.

Great piece. This is exactly how the media operates -- particularly the gruesome Maureen Dowd. She has made a career out of mocking major Democrats as unmanly -- from Gore to "breck girl" John Edwards to Obama. As usual, she twists and strains and often simply makes stuff up to fit her deeply unhinged analysis.

Who is questioning Obama's manhood? The only person using that term is the author. Eugene Robinson is hardly a conservative writer. He said, "Specifically -- and urgently -- where was the new plan to contain the oil spill and protect the coastline? I wish I’d heard the president order the kind of all-out marshaling and deployment of resources that now seems imperative. But I didn’t."
This isn't manhood/womanhood/blackhood/womanhood, it's leadership. True leadership in large crisis is developed through experience. Obama shows his lack of experience. He is a Lawyer, who is trained to change people's minds through the power of the word. A leader is someone who inspires people through action and direction, not by flowery word segments.

Obama was honest and said," ..so I can't dive down there and plug the hole." Question? Can Down plug any hole attached to her? Hardly. Talk is cheap, alas; scribbling is cheap these days as manifested by her shrill innuendos.

BP will set aside $20 billion to pay the victims of the massive oil spill in the Gulf, senior administration officials said Wednesday, a move made under pressure by the White House as the company copes with causing the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

The independent fund will be led by lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw payments to families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In his current role, Feinberg is known as Obama's "pay czar," setting salary limits for companies getting the most aid from a $700 billion government bailout fund.

"It is to accept that the swagger of a Mussolini or a George W Bush is somehow a more proper aspect of good leadership than the calm and directed persistence towards communal improvement of a Ghandi or a ML King or a Lincoln."

Bernie gets so much wrong here it is difficult to know where to start. In the first place, ignoring the slyly drawn but stupid equivalence between Mussolini and Bush, qb rightly pionted out (again on the last thread) that leadership styles are hardly limited to either Mussolini or Ghandi.

Second, apparently Bernie is unaware that neither Ghandi nor MLK were executives directing and making decisions for a large organization. The leadership qualities needed in the inspirational head of a cause are quite different to the leadership qualities needed in an executive making, implementing, and directing policy decisions. (This is precisely why Obama's experience as a "community organizer" was outrageously thin gruel as experiential preparation to be the president.)

Third, there is nothing mutually exclusive about displays of confidence in one's decisions (Bernie's "swagger") and "calm and directed persistance" towards a given goal. He invents a contrast where none need exist.

As an aside, Bernie's promotion of Lincoln as displaying the ideal leadership style is, well, interesting given the left's vilification of Bush as a serial violator of the constitution. Lincoln, of course, suspended the writ of habeas corpus leading to the arbitrary arrests of hundreds of American citizens (not foreign terrorists, mind you, but American citizens) and tried American citizens using military tribunals. Perhaps our Canadian guest is unaware of the controversy surrounding Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War, or perhaps he thinks Bush's military tribunals would have been more palatable had he simply imposed them with more "calm and directed persistance".

Well.....you gotta admit, he IS a bit prissy. I have no doubt Sarah "Barracuda" Palin would beat him in some 1 on 1 b-ball. As a smoker, he probably would be sucking air quickly as the very fit SP runs circles around him. He probably would float around out on the perimeter and loft the occasional 3, carefully avoiding contact. He'd likely try to pretend he's fouled on every shot so as to get a trip to the charity stripe. Clearly, he's not comfortable mixing it up. Then, once beaten, he'd blame the ref....even if it's not Bush.

What I find so incredibly frustrating over such columns is the utter lack of anything in the way of constructive solutions being offered. How can you honestly criticize someone if you're not sure what they should be doing instead?

Let's be honest here, this griping isn't substantive, it's all about political theatre. Its not about doing something it's about LOOKING like you're doing something.

Obama acting Bush-like is NOT going to get the leak to close any faster than it already is.

Still I fault the Obama administration for failing, yet again, to truly understand the media. You have to engage in political theatre and high symbolism to win over the chattering class and incredibly fickle, superficial-thinking voters, even if it's just for show. They have to stupid over-estimating the rationality and intelligence of both the media and yes voters.

It's like they keep hoping that people will be smart enough to look through the B.S., which is just incredibly, incredibly naive of them.

As the famous saying goes; "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public" - its best they realize that before they fall subject to similar characterizations.

Ethan2010, I think people would be shocked to see just how effective Obama's been. In some ways, he's been effective in ways that I don't agree with, such as with some of the DOJ briefs that seem to expand executive power (they haven't even been seen by Congress), but in terms of getting his way--Congressional Quarterly rated him as 90% persuasive last January, which is higher than even post-9/11 Bush's effectiveness.

screwjob, that's why he was able to shepherd through almost trillion dollar stimulus, near universal health care for every citizen, on the brink of passing monumental banking regulation and will no doubtingly start to ween this country off of the oil industry.

Mr Sargent has now put his hat in the ring for nomination to the post of liberal whiner in chief.

Obama is rightly being bashed for the mess in the Gulf. And the federal government should be bashed as well.

Sargent's defense of Obama? People who are demanding leadership are really demanding macho. What nonsense. To use this to defend a man who told us that voicing our concerns about his agenda was just us being "wee wee'd up" is the nadir of sensibility.

Obama told us that electing him meant that the oceans would stop rising. He said that, we didn't. Now the oceans have risen up to bight his butt and Sargent is aghast.

What a total and complete waste of bandwidth from Greg. Jeeze, how do the rest of us get jobs like that? If being incompetent in public was a virtue, Sargent and Obama should give each other medals.

And one of the things missed by the pundit class, imho, is that last night's speech wasn't JUST to the American people and wasn't JUST to advocates and bloggers, and wasn't JUST to people of the Gulf. It was a combination of those things, yes, but another aspect of the speech that has been ignored is that it was to future historians.

When we look back at the speech 10 years from now, it will be emblematic of a President who suffered a horrible hand with multiple concurrent conflicts and crises and yet was straight with the American people, outlined both long and short-term prescriptions for progress, and in the end got essentially what he wanted WITHOUT bullying Congress or the American people.

In THAT context, it truly was a remarkable piece of political communication. My initial reaction was that it was brilliant for those reasons, and my sentiment is only further bolstered with getting BP to cow to the escrow idea less than 24 hours later. If he can follow through on strong energy legislation, and maybe even get carbon pricing, that will seal the deal on the "action" side.

At the end of the day, we didn't get single-payer or a public option in HCR and we may not get carbon-pricing in Energy Reform... but we DID get HCR and we probably will get a fairly strong energy reform bill. Those things, plus financial reform and a list of many other smaller accomplishments, are enough "change" for me to consider his Presidency to be the transformative leadership that I wanted when I voted for him in 2008.

You don't watch MSNBC or CNN, the two whom conservatives consider "in the tank" then do you. I'm pretty certain every member of the evening line-up have criticized him on every major piece of legislation.

There's never been cheer leading of this admin going on. They have all been critical when critical is appropriate.

The only network who blindly supports candidates is Fox, which isn't a real news organization. They are a propaganda network, period.

If the president gets the 20 billion from B P for the escrow fund, Obama has something to "crow" about.
Now, the other challenges are logistical. The jury is out on that. This oil spill cannot be compared to a Cuba Missile Crisis or Little Rock. Such comparisons are irrevelent.
This is a long haul type problem.

The energy and climate bill that Republicans call a light-switch tax would lower electricity bills, at least in its early years, the Environmental Protection Agency reported Tuesday.

The EPA study of the proposed American Power Act, sponsored by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said that energy bills for the average household — not including gasoline — would decrease by 10 percent by 2020, rise by 1 percent in 2030 and rise by 16 percent in 2050. The increases after 2030 largely would be offset by rebates, protective plans for low-income households and other measures, the analysis said.

Thank you Mr. Sargent, this needed to be said. You might also have mentioned Rudy (who's your daddy) Giuliani, and how badly he got trounced.

The American people aren't idiots after all. But it seems that the MSM are. We've seen enough of the swaggering, tough-talking photo-ops to know that they don't work! Buy George Bush's 5th year in office, it had ceased to be comforting or inspiring, and quickly became nauseating.

Obama and the entire federal government might not be able to plug that oil well, but Bush's swagger would not have fixed it either.

Its not macho swagger or tough talk most of "us" are seeking --- we're just desperate for competence in being able to execute a viable plan to contain the oil, clean up what has already soiled the environment, and to deploy a solution that could do even better than the current solution. We're not asking BO to be the expert, but we sure are asking that he put people in place who, at a minimum, can demonstrate that they can at least project plan!

It is all part of the typical GOP feminization of Dems. We saw this with John Edwards (who admittedly had other problems) and everyone else since Reagan ran against Carter or maybe since Nixon against Humphrey. But have things and the electorate changed?

Yesterday I mentioned the stunning article in the Atlantic Monthly about women becoming dominant in field after field. Part of women taking charge of things is that women are more willing to vote, and make up at least 52% of the electorate. I don't think women today are looking for a Marlboro Man, especially after Bush II. More women today are looking for someone who can learn and communicate and who is flexible and adaptive--someone in whom they recognize their own strengths. Mo Dowd to the contrary notwithstanding, Obama fits this much better than anyone else in national politics, especially with Hillary at State.

So don't assume that the electorate is the same one that responded to Ronald Reagan. It isn't, not by a long shot.

Unfortunately some previous presidents, including Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Bush II, among others, seemed to feel they had to "prove their manhood," by ordering foolish, unjustified military adventures abroad, such as the Vietnam war and invasion of Iraq. For Kennedy and Johnson this was also partly because of McCarthyism ten or fifteen years earlier, they believed they could not appear to be "weak" on communism.

Obama, in significantly escalating the war in Afghanistan and increasing attacks in Pakistan, has already tried to show his "manhood" in similar ways to these presidents. Seems as if some pundits and ordinary people were not impressed though.

Obama IS weak! Did anybody notice during the campaign when he folded on the flag pin issue, backed down on Rev. Wright and catered to white stereotypes by blasting black men as deadbeat dads during his Father's Day speech? Are we now surprised that he won't stand up to England and BP? All the signs of weakness were there before the election. I much prefer his wife, she seems more presidential.

No silly, it's all a part of the typical DemocRat-condoned feminization of males. You have it exactly backwards.

I know you are trying to misdirect deliberately, but it isn't GOP floating the Sissy Obama meme.

"I don't think women today are looking for a Marlboro Man, especially after Bush II. More women today are looking for someone who can learn and communicate and who is flexible and adaptive--someone in whom they recognize their own strengths."

Are you sure you didn't enter the wrong address in your browser?

This is the Slum Line, a "newsy" Moonbat Manor. The online dating service you must have been looking for can be accessed here:

www.eharmony.com/

"Mo Dowd to the contrary notwithstanding, Obama fits this much better than anyone else in national politics, especially with Hillary at State."

Sounds to me like you're "voting your ovaries" and rationalizing it as something other.

bsimon1:
"Not a bad strategy; it worked against former Navy fighter pilot George Herbert Walker Bush."

Just a correction. Bush 41 had a bigger pair even than that.

He was torpedo-bomber pilot. Flying a winged aluminum gas-can with a 1000 pound torpedo slung under it low and slow and straight at the side of Japanese warships and the rows of machine guns along the rail blazing away at him.

Got shot down 5 times doing whack stuff like that, and these dirt-bag moonbats called him a "wimp".

The American people have 20 Billion reasons to thank President Obama for his quick action in the gulf oil leak disaster.
No other president has ever gotten an internantional company to set aside such a large amount of funds for damage claims. Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43, should have made Exxon pay it's fair share for the spill in Alaska, but they never did.
For those who want to knock the President, please realize that we do not have the equipment the expertise or the training to cap this well.That is the responsibility of British Petroleum. But we do have a response for the cleanup underway and $20,000,000,000.00 billion in the bank to help restore the region and help those affected make it through.
Thank you President Obama, for again showing that tough words do not take the place of real action. In other words cash talks and b.s. walks.

I've come to believe that the media will make up something to critize a President (not just Obama but Bush, Clinton, etc.) about even if there is currently nothing there to criticize. I think this is an unfortunate consequences of Water Gate - every reporter is deadset on being the next Woodward and Bernstein that they are hypercritical of the president which delights his opponents and frustrates his suporters.

No matter whose in office, you can't win them over so don't bother trying. They aren't interested in presenting an accurate picture, just pulitizer prize winning spin and hey, unrelenting negativity sells.

Funny, I happened to see Chris Matthews on MSNBC this morning critiquing the President's speech, he's not normally the way I want to begin a morning. Nevertheless, his two big complaints were how is he going to get BP to voluntarily give up $20b, sounded like a pipe dream to him. DONE. And his second complaint was Obama's dreaming if he thinks anyone is going to capture 90% of the oil gushing from the DW Horizon gusher. I guess Chris forgot to do his homework on that one as well, since that is precisely the plan in place over the next two or three weeks.

Silly pundits and reporters, the "Marlboro Man" died out with smoking is cool.

No one cares what the insufferable flack Gerson, the hideous crone Dowd, or any of the rightwingnut teatard trolls on this board have to say about Obama. It's all just noise from a bunch of powerless feebs.

hey @Mike--there are many news organizations that distort the news to the favor of the Dems/the left. You are really delusional to believe that Fox is the only station that has an agenda. This is one of our biggest issues now. Lefties and Dem cannot see the forest for the trees and if you live in the Metro area--you have 4-7&9 to balance 5 but then that's off balance. The writer, Greg, what a conflicted guy he is. He criticizes yet the writes in the same fashion he does not agree with but that is typical for you folks. Don't use words like cattily when you are a Cheshire. I want to see the polls Greg cites that alledged approve of BO--those polls only exist in Greg's little head. Note that he does not name the polls, just another Dem trick--put out the statement but don't back it up with solid proof. So sad that we have become so divided but I believe it is our administration (and these people who write columns--they are not journalists, just guys with opinions) that perpetuates the divide. After all, that's the way to bring the people down and there's no way that the Dems want to bring us all together.

All it means is the chattering nits on the left are tired of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin getting all the revenue from outrageous comments and want some of the action. If we had coins with the faces of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin on the head side, tails would be Dowd, Olberman and Matthews.

Really, Dowd is a mean old crone who gets meaner as she gets older, and she's pretty damn mean by now. Gerson is an idiot bible thumper reject from the Bush Administration. A reject from the Bush Administration. Think of that.

@cjpotter: Excellent! The only difference I have is media types no longer want to be Woodward and Bernstein. I believe Woodward and Bernstein were motivated by investigative reporting leading to something remotely related to justice. Today, all we have are celebrity wannabes looking to make fast bucks. Analysis, facts, and straight reporting have no place when all that gets attention is opinion. What is most disturbing are the number on the left and right that jump on the media bandwagon heading in their direction.

Thanks Greg, very good! The best part of your article is the memory of Bush's swagger, but I personally believe that Bush stole this part from Reagan, who had his own more subtle swagger developed over years of cowboy parts. In retrospect the swagger becomes an appalling mockery of what a thoughtful politician should be, but at the time...when Bush gave his "we're going to smoke them out" line, or the "Mission Accomplished" speech, the swagger was a huge success. Much of the public loved it. It was only later, when we realized we had been the victims of a con job, that the swagger started looking comic.

I think it's disgusting that so much hatred is aimed at a president who inherited 2 wars, a dying economy, etc. from a Fascist president and is now mired in an ongoing natural disaster. None of this is Obama's fault by any stretch of the imagination, and the constant spew of hatred is nothing short of racism.

Luckily the hate-mongering GOP is imploding because it can't control its own spew factor.

Well, considering what the 'strong' leaders Reagan (recall Lebanon and Iran-Contra) and Bush (remember Afghanistan and Iraq) did, I'll take Obama's strength. It is much more difficult to acknowledge limitations, and try to act on them.

Only children use bravado as a substitute. After all, remember how well that 'axis of the not nice' (is that it?) worked.

You go EdSantaFe! It will take years to dig out of Bush's almost infinite incompetence at running the country. He was pretty good at funneling money to his fat cat friends by exploding the deficit, though.

This is just more noise from the crowd that loved W's chickenhawk machismo. Remember, "you can run, but you can't hide"? Or how about "bring it on"? The GOP is full of blowhards like Dick "I never met a deferment I didn't like" Cheney and Rush, etc. etc. The GOP sells hatred, not programs. They live off fear and they stoop to the gutter with their complaints about Obama's socialism, weakness, or what have you. The gutless Rep.Stephen King (Iowa R) just played the race card in a ridiculous fashion. The Republicans know that if anyone looks at their policies they will see the same failed ideas that gave us the Great Depression.

For generations many people used the term "boy" instead of man when describing a black male. Questioning a black man's manhood is part of racism. When many people talk about Obama today, they use terms like man-child. How is that different than calling a black man boy? Pretending that Obama isn't a real man is a holdover of racism of the past.

None of this is Obama's fault by any stretch of the imagination, and the constant spew of hatred is nothing short of racism.
Posted by: EdSantaFe
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Oh I get it. Because the oil is black and we want the oil spill plugged we're rascists. My bad, I'll go apologize to Al Sharpton now.

This is just more noise from the crowd that loved W's chickenhawk machismo. Remember, "you can run, but you can't hide"? Or how about "bring it on"? The GOP is full of blowhards like Dick "I never met a deferment I didn't like" Cheney and Rush, etc. etc. The GOP sells hatred, not programs. They live off fear and they stoop to the gutter with their complaints about Obama's socialism, weakness, or what have you. The gutless Rep.Stephen King (Iowa R) just played the race card in a ridiculous fashion. The Republicans know that if anyone looks at their policies they will see the same failed ideas that gave us the Great Depression.

Posted by: theStockman | June 16, 2010 3:48 PM

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What the hell does any of this have to do with Obama's performance as President in this crisis?

Gerson is a d-bag apologist for Bush who looks like he wakes up everyday with his manhood questioned and Dowd is a bitter woman who spends most of her time figuring out what is is her good side in photos. Their opinions are only important to wingnuts.

Nothing about the hot sessions he used to hold on a weekly basis with Reverend Ted Haggard in the Weird House?

You know the famous reverend, don't you? In public his mouth was full of Hosannas, Halleluyas and Jesus loves you.

But in private his mouth among others, was full of something else, with his, how to say, "escort boys", "Rent-a-boy" I think is the correct word. 200 bucks and the whole night to get to the seventh sky, thanks to real manhood and tremendous use of mets.

Republican Leaders prefer to get together in Airport Men's Toilet Stalls.

How true Ha, Ha,
Posted by: Rayden1234
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Good point. If Obama is clueless on what to do about the oil he should call those guys. Dudes that hook up in bathroom stalls have a lot of experience plugging holes.

He's falling victim to the liberal dilemma. He could have given the WWII-style speech 7 weeks ago. But he didn't, because then he would have owned the spill, even though it's not something the government can do much of anything about after it happens and apparently didn't do much to prevent before it happened. Now he's starting to take the blame, so he goes off on the other extreme, to wit: "I am the personification of big government and I'm going to fix this some how some way." Then he starts issuing orders like, as Ben Stein accurately notes, some kind of Caudillo, pushing BP around and demanding the Congress pass clean energy legislation.

It's really not very convincing. And contrary to Mr. Sargent's view, it has nothing to do with manhood. It has to with coming to grips with a bad situation in a consistent and appropriate way and not descending into self-pity and rhetorical excess for appearances sake. People can see through that. They aren't stupid.

They slammed Bush over the Katrina response for the last two years of his presidency. He basically ignored them and went about doing his job. Obama should learn from Bush's example. He should focus on winning the war in Afghanistan and making the right decisions in regard to the economy, which means don't try and unload some idiotic cap and trade scheme on the backs of the people right now, especially after jamming a massive health care bill down their throat.

Oil is linking from 1 mile under the sea, just what do you expect the President to do about it? This country has never in its history experienced this type of spill before.

Instead of blaming the President, we should place the blame were it belongs with Haliburton, the greed share holders and the owners of the wells. And let's not forget about the teapartiers, the conservatives and the GOP who for years called for deregulations of our laws and smaller government as well as blocked all attempts to rain in their greed buddies.

None of this would be happening if Dick Cheney's company HALIBURTON had actually performed the work they were paid to do. So if you really want to place the blame then blame Haliburton!

The truth is that Obama is in way over his head. God forbid we have another crisis, we'll find him whimpering on the toilet. He is inexperienced at solving problems or even turning to those who would have solutions. We don't need macho, we need brains, of which he's lacking unless he's stirring the Marxist pot for another radical agenda.

He is not only useless, he is a hindrance to the BP spill. We could have had help from countries 3 days after the spill, who have solved these kinds of problems, especially by not allowing the oil to reach our shores. But no, Obama turned the help down because the stupid unions didn't like it. Never mind that the unions did not have enough manpower to handle this, Obama aquiesced to these thugs.

A 2 year old could have handled this better. But wait, another coincidence? Did Obama allow the spill to get this bad for Cap & Trade? Oh, no, he's been listening to Rham.

Obama lies, cheats and steals from the American People every single day. He hates America and the American People, that's the real problem.

This has nothing to do with machismo, everything to do with where the buck stops.

As far as I can see, it's still floating around. That may not be the case, but if not then the president and the "fourth estate" (LOL) are obligated to inform the public.

BP, YESTERDAY, found out about a new beach-restoral device. YESTERDAY, we learned that it had not the personnel to oversee the purchases of materials federally required to protect workers engaged in clean-up.

TODAY, we still do not know why the offers of eight countries have not been accepted.

ETC. "I've asked BP the same question" suggests a floating buck. The failure of the press to follow up suggests the same.

Floating books lead to catastrophe, financial and otherwise, as we've seen.

It's not that he's not macho enough any more than the press is not. It's that he is either not presidential enough or forthcoming enough.

As for the press, it is not journalistic enough, but that, alas, is old, old news.

"Dowd is a bitter woman who spends most of her time figuring out what is is her good side in photos," because that's what women do...get it?

This is sexism. No "Progressive" will voice disgust at such offensive language from one of their own because they don't actually care.

Posted by: batigol85
******************
Go F yourself with the faux outrage. An idiot is an idiot is an idiot, no matter the gender. Given the racist spewings out of you wingnuts, your crocodile tears about a person that used to take Bush apart weekly is laughable (no doubt, you weren't flapping your jaws about sexisim then) Keep playing the victim, that is what you wingnuts do best. Oh, and f things up the ninth degree.

Those who practice white supremacy have always thought smart black men are qweer. Especially if they don't play professional sports... The only viable "manly" representation that white supremacists accept in a black man is a "thug gangster" or professional athlete. Inteeligent, articulate black men intimidate those who practice white supremacy.

Well, now that YOU brought it up, Greg; his opening day pitch was delivered as if by a girl. Good thing he's a BBall and golf player because he sure can't throw. And never, ever forget: President Obama hates Jews and Cajun people.

I believe the psychologists and sociologists call it infantilization, and it was a popular practice among slaveowners and later the dominant white culture in their treatment of, uh, African Americans. Could some of the problem be racism? I don't think, for example, that Maureen Dowd is a racist--I think she is a silly, pathetic excuse for a newspaper columnist. But others? Oh, yeah.

october30 wrote "..It seems Maureen Dowd, Carville, Mathews, et al, secretly want the return of Bush Bravado and its so called benefits of the past ten years, plus GOP expertise of economic success. LOL.."
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At least Bush would have given BP back their MILLION DOLLARS in campaign contributions long before now. Go LOL on that one, butt-wink.

//you can't come up with anything better than telling me to f myself. I thought you were supposed to be the smart ones.

"An idiot is an idiot is an idiot, no matter the gender. Given the racist spewings out of you wingnuts, your crocodile tears about a person that used to take Bush apart weekly is laughable (no doubt, you weren't flapping your jaws about sexisim then)"

//this literally makes no sense. I guess what you're trying to imply is that anyone who disagrees with you is sexist. I would disagree.

"Keep playing the victim, that is what you wingnuts do best. Oh, and f things up the ninth degree."

Since when is leadership "manly"? How sexist. The president is supposed to lead. Leaders make plans and decisions, they do not just give speeches with meaningless generalities.
Complaining about this treatment of Obama is petty. It's a smoke screen to try to hide his horrible performance. He insults people's intelligence saying "I can't suck it up with a straw." Really? Is that supposed to be funny? But you could have mobilized right when the leak happened, right? He still doesn't get it. That awful speech proved it. He's lost. He's over his head. He's not a leader.

Who says ole "purple lips" refuses to be manly and take decisive action? Just look at all the Louisiana/Texas, etc. offshore drilling workers along with the ancillary support businesses that have been put out of work by our leader's diktat to shut down all, repeat all drilling in the Gulf.

Shallower rigs may get an o.k. but only after review and proclamation of new rules and regulations be promulated by incompetent, on the job federal learners.

Prospects for drilling in deep water, where the important reservoirs are located are dim to say the least.

And this direct government action by Obama killing jobs at the same time as unemployment figures improve only because of temporary new census workers hires which represent more additions to the federal deficit.

If this leader is concerned about his poll numbers re his inability to react and solve or indeed mitigate the blow out in La. offshore, he really ought to be spending his time at least equally in solving this nation's extraordinary budget crisis.

By comparison the blowout is mere child's play.

It appears that the blow out was due to poor management and efforts to do things on the cheap. "Penny wise pound foolish" the Brits would term it.

Our budget fiasco is due directly to Obama's complete disregard for the realities of America's financial condition and his determination to ignore these realities in his crusade to do good in America and the world.

The U.S. simply cannot continue to be entering into more commitments at home let alone abroad, e.g. $80 billion for Haiti and $8 billion for Congo etc.

Keep Hillary in her office for the sake of the nation's economic wellbeing and Obama in the Oval Office where he can spend some time on solving the nation's more pressing problems.

Also in what should be a time of austerity for the federal government cut out those White House parties, especially for such as old rock stars and the like, and not the little people.

The "little people" of America are watching and on the basis of what they are seeing and hearing have more often than not concluded that "No, he can't" and so count the days until November when they can at least deny Obama a substantial portion of his enablers and deliver their decisive, crystal clear message at the same time.

"We are fed up and simply will not take it anymore." (And may God help any self-serving politician who is not smart enough to see this truth and so begin to mend his/her ways.)

It hasn't sunk in yet, hazit? We can't trust the lying oil companies. Y'da thunk it wouldda sunk in with the monopolies o'da 19th century or at least by da Teapot Dome Scandal that we can't trust these greasy oily companies. We should be choking on by now but somehow BP's original "1000 barrel a day" estimate turning into a 20 to 35,000 barrel a day reality hazn'sunk in yet. I get the impression that BP could try and sell this as "snafubar" in a PR campaign and the public would buy it as a new brand of candy. BP doesn't wanna plug up the hole 'cause they look at any oil that they draw offa it as profit an'if da hole's plugged up they ain't squat off the hole. Pigs.

Obama knows his limits and that is maturity. Obama's detractors, the ones that say, "Obama is over his head," fail to mention that so is BP and and our government put together in solving this mess. Furthermore, I have yet to see one detractor offer up a solution to this problem. Simply put we are all over our heads in this mess.

I have offered a solution for plugging up the hole temporarally by injecting polymerizing agents and their catalysts deep into the well. With all the petroleum processing plants on the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, some company is bound t have a formula that makes a solid out of most oils in the environment that this gusher is in. But as usual no one listens.

The Obama cheering squad doesn't pay much attention, do they?
Amazing how many are crowing that he jacked BP out of $20 billion today, forcing them to put it into escrow.
Wrong.
They cut a better deal.
BP is only putting $5 billion into escrow with a deferred payment schedule of additional $5 billion payments over the next several years.
Did they really think that BP would give up that operating capital? Or forgo the interest on that money?
Not only is Obama ineffective,he's never run a lemonade stand. He has no understanding of business. Guess he skipped that at Columbia and Harvard.